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Tech News 2Night 140 (Transcript)

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Tonight! Russia wants Apple's source code to protect against spying, Tor says their network was breached, and why Twitter bought a "deep learning" start-up
Tech News 2Night is Next!
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This is Tech News 2Night Episode #140, for Wednesday July 30, 2014
This episode of Tech News 2Night is brought to you by NatureBox. Order great-tasting, healthy snacks delivered right to your door. Forget the vending machine, and get in shape with healthy, delicious treats like Cinnamon Swirl Kettle Kernels! To get 50% off your first box go to naturebox.com/twit.
I'm Sarah Lane, Let's get right to the Tech Feed!
The Russian Communications Ministry has proposed in a statement that Apple and SAP give the Russian government access to their source code, a set of computer instructions that translate programs into machine-readable instructions for computers, to be sure their products are not being used as tools for spying. The Ministry says the proposal was designed to ensure the rights of consumers and corporate users to the privacy of their personal data, as well as for state security interests, and that "Edward Snowden's revelations in 2013 and U.S. intelligence services' public statements about the strengthening of surveillance of Russia in 2014 have raised a serious question of trust in foreign software and hardware." The ministry cited an over 10-year cooperation with Microsoft, which has been sharing its source code for the Windows OS and other products since 2003 with Atlas, a technology institution that reports to the ministry. Both Apple and SAP declined comment.
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Tor, which is a service used to mask the identity of Internet users, says its network was breached and likely it's the work of researchers at Carnegie-Mellon University, the same ones that had planned to demonstrate a Tor hack at a conference next week which has been cancelled by lawyers for the university. The researchers couldn’t be reached for comment, and the Carnegie-Mellon lawyers previously said the research project wasn’t yet cleared for public release. Tor stands for “the onion router.” and is managed by a nonprofit in Cambridge, Mass. It was originally developed to protect the communications of the U.S. Navy and still is partially funded by the U.S. government.
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Bloomberg is reporting that Snapchat is in talks with investors including Alibaba Group, for a round of financing that could value the company at $10 billion, citing anonymous sources. If that funding goes through, Snapchat would join a small group of technology startups that are valued in the eleven-digit range, such as house-sharing app Airbnb, file-sharing service Dropbox, and car-booking app Uber. Snapchat says that its users are sending more than 700 million “snaps” a day and more than 500 million stories viewed daily. Potential financier Alibaba is China’s biggest e-commerce company and is preparing to go public on the New York Stock Exchange this year, which could could be the biggest IPO in U.S. history.
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Microsoft has announced it will start selling the Xbox One to consumers in China starting on September 23. Home consoles were previously banned in China after the release of the PlayStation 2. But foreign game consoles have been widely available through the country's gray market. Back in 2012, a Chinese motion-sensor equipped home console called the CT510 was actually released because it claimed to be an exercise machine. The base console will retail for about $599, and will come with copies of Powerstar Gold and Neverwinter Online pre-installed, along with free Xbox Live Gold membership through March 2015.
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9to5Mac is reporting that ahead of Apple’s acquisition of Beats Electronics and Beats Music is officially completed, two companies have begun work on transitioning select employees and resources from Beats to Apple. Anonymous sources tell 9to5Mac that Many Beats employees in development and creative roles have been offered positions at Apple, but many Beats employees working in support, finance and HR departments may no longer have jobs, with some workers being laid off in the past few weeks. Apple has allegedly already begun work on transitioning the Beats Music technology to its iTunes infrastructure.
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The Federal Communications Commission has sent Verizon Wireless a letter, asking why it has made it a policy to throttle customers with unlimited data plans. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler who authored the note, says "I am deeply troubled by your July 25, 2014 announcement that Verizon Wireless intends to slow down some customers' data speeds on your 4G LTE network starting in October 2014" and "It is disturbing to me that Verizon Wireless would base its "network management" on distinctions among its customers' data plans, rather than on network architecture or technology." The FCC is currently weighing how to effectively regulate broadband speeds, wireless spectrum, peering/interconnection and calls for enhanced net neutrality rules. In response, Verizon issued a statement claiming "The purpose is to ensure there is capacity for everyone in those limited circumstances, and that high users don't limit capacity for others."
Coming up a odd looking copper brillo pad thing that promises to keep your computer cool and silent...
and up next I'll talk with Jordan Novet from VentureBeat about deep learning and Twitter's latest acquisition.
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[Segment #2]
Jordan Novet Staff Writer, VentureBeat
Article by your colleague Alexia LaFata ""Twitter joins deep learning trend, acquires Madbits""
- Twitter acquired Madbits, a deep learning startup that specializes in visual intelligence technology.
- What does Twitter hope to gain from Madbits?
- What is deep learning?
- Is this all about analyzing images or are there other uses for this technology for Twitter?
- Other companies like Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Baidu have started using Deep Learning. In fact you wrote an article today about a Deep Learning guru moving from Google to Baidu. What are the applications for this type of data that we might start seeing more of?
//Thanks Jordan Novet Staff Writer, VentureBeat "
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Here's a new innovation from a company called Silent Power- a tiny little computer that's also half heat sink, with an oversized copper blanket on its top side being used to cool the entire machine, allowing it to run entirely without fans. Silent Power says that it'll include a Core i7 Haswell processor and a discrete graphics card from Nvidia. The Silent Power PC isn't ready to ship yet, it's still being crowdfunded, with Silent Power taking preorders that'll be filled if it sells 45,000 euro (just over $60,000 USD) worth of machines.
[good bye] That's it for this edition of Tech News 2Night.
Subscribe to this show at Twit.tv/tn2, and write us at tn2@twit.tv
Don't miss our morning news program, Tech News Today, tomorrow and every weekday at 10am Pacific, 1 pm Eastern. I'm Sarah Lane, thanks for watching.